
18
SABBATH-SCHOOL LESSON QUARTERLY
(a)
In the sun,
(b)
In the moon,
(c)
-In the stars,
(d)
Among the nations,
(e)
In the sea,
(f)
In the hearts of men.
2. No doubt the primary meaning of this text is that in the
last days people will search the prophecies, and as a result knowl-
edge of
-
the Scriptures will increase. But it doubtless has a
broader meaning, as knowledge in all lines follows where the 'word
of God is studied.
"To appreciate them [the wonders of this age], let us briefly
contrast the conditions of to-day with those of a hundred years
ago. This is no easy task, for the comparison not only involves
the experiences of two generations, but it is like the juxtaposition
of a star with the noonday sun, whose superior brilliancy oblit-
erates the lesser light.. , .
we make the backward run of
one hundred years, we have passed by many mile-stones of prog-
ress. Let us see if we can count some of them as they disappear
behind us. We quickly lose the telephone, phonograph, and
.
grapho-
phone. We no longer see the cable-cars or electric railways. The
electric lights have gone out. The telegraph disappears. The
sewing-machine, reaper, and thrasher have passed away, and so
also have all india-rubber goods. We no longer see any photo-
graphs, photoengravings, photolithographs, or snap-shot cameras.
The wonderful octuple web perfecting printing-press, printing,
pasting, cutting, folding, and counting newspapers at the rate
of 96,000 per hour, or 1,600 per minute, shrinks at the begin-
ning of the century into an insignificant prototype. We lose all
planing and wood-working machinery, and with it the endless
variety of sashes, doors, blinds, and furniture in unlimited va-
riety. There are no gas-engines, no passenger-elevators, no asphalt
pavement, no steam fire-engine, no triple-expansion steam-engine,
no Giffard injector, no celluloid articles, no barbed wire fences, no
time-locks for safes, no self-binding harvesters, no oil- or gas-
wells, no ice machines nor cold storage. We lose air-engines,
stem-winding watches, cash-registers, and cash-carriers, the great
suspension bridges • and tunnels, the Suez Canal, iron-frame build-
ings, monitors and heavy ironclads, revolvers, torpedoes, maga-
zine gunS, and Gatling guns, linotype machines, all practical type-
writers, all Pasteurizing, knowledge of microbes or disease germs,
and sanitary plumbing, water-gas, soda-water fountains, air-
brakes, coal-tar dyes and medicines, nitroglycerin, dynamite and
guncotton, dynamo-electric machines, aluminum ware, electric loco-
motives Bessemer steel with its wonderful developments, ocean